Tom Sykes completed his second double victory of the season at Imola to move into the lead of the Superbike World Championship. The Kawasaki rider carried his Superpole dominance into Sunday to easily win both races while Sylvain Guintoli suffered his first retirement of the year to lose his advantage.
The result was particularly poignant with Kawasaki’s Joan Lascorz suffering career-ending injuries in a crash during testing here last year and Sykes was keen to dedicate the wins to the popular Spaniard.
“I have had two perfect weekends out of the last three events and for this I am truly happy. I enjoy this circuit so we have made the most of it. A perfect weekend so it could not have been any better. It is a special weekend for many reasons and also the incident last year with my 2012 team-mate Joan Lascorz. There was not one time on any lap when I have exited turn six and not thought about his accident. We are all thinking of Joan and I hope that this is a small, small tribute to him. Both the ZX-10R and myself have been working well. I have every single individual member of the Kawasaki staff and teams to thank, and our great technical sponsors. Without their help I would not be able to showcase myself so I truly am grateful. Hopefully now this is a beginning of a challenge but we will see how we go.”
Guintoli headed into the weekend 28 points ahead but an engine failure in race one wiped out his advantage. The Frenchman did salvage a podium in race two behind Sykes and Jonathan Rea but that wasn’t enough to prevent him falling six points behind in the title chase, losing the lead for the first time since taking it in the season opener.
Eugene Laverty also lost ground after crashing out of third in race two, leaving him with just a third from race one to show for his efforts after being pipped by Davide Giugliano. The BMWs of Marco Melandri and Chaz Davies are also now playing catch-up despite solid top six finishes, Melandri narrowly missing out on a brace of podiums with four in each race.
| 2013 eni Superbike World Championship | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riders Championship Standings After Round Seven – Imola | |||||
| Pos | Rider | Bike | Team | Wins | Pts |
| 1 |  Tom Sykes |
Kawasaki | Kawasaki Racing Team | 5 | 235 |
| 2 |  Sylvain Guintoli |
Aprilia | Aprilia Racing Team | 1 | 229 |
| 3 |  Eugene Laverty |
Aprilia | Aprilia Racing Team | 4 | 190 |
| 4 |  Marco Melandri |
BMW | BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK | 2 | 182 |
| 5 | Chaz Davies |
BMW | BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK | 2 | 154 |
| 6 | Loris Baz |
Kawasaki | Kawasaki Racing Team | 136 | |
| 7 | Jonathan Rea |
Honda | PATA Honda World Superbike | 125 | |
| 8 | Michel Fabrizio |
Aprilia | Red Devils Roma | 120 | |
| 9 | Davide Giugliano |
Aprilia | Althea Racing | 99 | |
| 10 | Leon Camier |
Suzuki | FIXI Crescent Suzuki | 80 | |
| 11 | Jules Cluzel |
Suzuki | FIXI Crescent Suzuki | 77 | |
| 12 |  Max Neukirchner |
Ducati | MR-Racing | 60 | |
| 13 |  Carlos Checa |
Ducati | Team Ducati Alstare | 59 | |
| 14 | Ayrton Badovini |
Ducati | Team Ducati Alstare | 59 | |
| 15 | Leon Haslam |
Honda | PATA Honda World Superbike | 42 | |
| 16 | Federico Sandi |
Kawasaki | Pedercini Team | 28 | |
| 17 | Ivan Clementi |
BMW | HTM Racing | 18 | |
| 18 | Vittorio Iannuzzo |
BMW | Grillini Dentalmatic SBK | 15 | |
| 19 | Niccolo Canepa |
Ducati | Team Ducati Alstare | 11 | |
| 20 |  Alexander Lundh |
Kawasaki | Pedercini Team | 10 | |
| 21 | Fabrizio Lai |
Kawasaki | Pedercini Team | 8 | |
| 22 |  Glenn Allerton |
BMW | Next Gen Motorsports | 6 | |
| 23 | Jamie Stauffer |
Honda | Team Honda Racing | 4 | |
| 24 |  Kosuke Akiyoshi |
Honda | PATA Honda World Superbike | 2 | |
| 25 | Noriyuki Haga |
BMW | Grillini Dentalmatic SBK | 2 | |
| 26 | Mark Aitchison |
Ducati | Team Effenbert Liberty Racing | 2 | |
| Next Round: Moscow (July 21st) | |||||
